Richard Hawke - Speak of the Devil

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit. If Linda knows, Lizzy knows. That’s great. I really love family secrets.”

He showed no signs of moving from where he stood. Helen Keller herself could have read the body language. Made me think of a novelty doormat: NOT WELCOME.

I checked my watch. This had to go quick. I sat down on the edge of the small desk. “Her name is Annette Hartman. Her husband’s name is Bob. Or Robert. I guess it depends on how friendly you are with him. My guess is that you’re not. Friendly with him, I mean. Our friend Bob is left-handed. I mention that only to show off my sleuthing skills. You had a boo-boo around your right eye the other day, and your mother says Linda thinks you got clocked by your girlfriend’s husband.” I held my fingers to my temples and narrowed my eyes, as if I were receiving a transmission. “You eat lunch together, sometimes Mexican. Sometimes you go to the Raccoon Lodge after work, and if I’m not mistaken, Mrs. Hartman is at this very minute making photocopies of something that is too large to fit on the glass.”

I dropped the telepathic act. “Look. Paul. Your wife is distressed, your mother is concerned, and for what it’s worth, your half brother thinks you should keep away from other people’s wives. If you and Linda have a problem with your marriage, or if you’ve got a problem with your life, find a long-term fix, not a short-term one.”

As if on cue, a light knocking sounded on the door. Paul opened it. The redhead was standing there, a look of concern on her face. She handed Paul a folder.

“Here’s the file you asked for,” she said. She spoke stiffly, as if reading from a script.

Paul looked momentarily confused. “It’s okay,” he said. “This is my half brother.”

“Your…” Her face relaxed. “Oh. Okay. I just… okay.” She took the folder back from and looked past him. “Sorry.” She moved off. Paul closed the door. I hadn’t expected a smug expression to be on his face, but that’s what was there.

“That was Annette,” he said.

I tapped my finger against my head. “I figured.”

“She’s a friend of mine.”

“We’re all adults here.”

“No. I mean, she’s a friend of mine. We’re friends. That’s all we are.”

“I’ve said my piece.”

“For your information, Annette’s husband is the one having an affair. He’s an A-number-one prick. She deserves someone a lot better than him.”

“But that someone’s not you?”

“I told you, we’re just friends. Work buddies.”

“And your black eye?”

“Yeah. That was her husband. Annette’s been worried sick that her husband was seeing someone. She wasn’t positive, but she suspected. She confided in me and I told her I’d look into it.”

“Look into it?”

He blushed. He knew he had blushed, and he wished he hadn’t. Which only made him blush all the more.

“Yeah,” he said defensively. “So what? She asked me.”

“What does Annette do here?” I asked.

“Here? She’s in marketing.”

“What’s your job?”

“Mainly development. Why?”

“Nothing. I’ve never worked in an office. I guess I don’t know the part where the marketing person asks the development guy to spy on her husband for her. I don’t know, Paul. Professionally speaking, you’re taking a potential client away from the likes of me. That’s more my game, you know.”

It was a cheap shot, and I regretted it the moment I said it. Paul Scott’s Daddy issues-and I knew he had them-were probably not finding a whole lot of resolution in this closet-sized office on the edges of Cubicle Land. The last thing he needed was me tweaking him for playing detective.

“Why don’t you just get out of here?” Paul said testily. “Some of us have work to do.”

Some of us have work to do . Honestly, it made me want to cry.

I pushed off the desk and he stepped aside. “That way.” He pointed, as if I’d forgotten which way we’d come. I heard his door close behind me. As I passed the room with the swinging door, it swung open and I nearly collided with the one and only Annette Hartman.

“Oh!”

She was still holding the file folder. A piece of paper slipped from it. I bent down and picked it up. It was a blank sheet, except for the handwritten words “Is everything okay?” I straightened and handed the paper to her. She blushed, too. Must be the effect I had.

“My name’s Fritz Malone,” I said in a low voice. “If you and Paul are fooling around, be smart. Stop. If not, I apologize.”

She sputtered. “W-what?”

“As for your husband, I get pictures, I get names and places, I testify in court if you need that. I can put the fear of God in him. Or I can put it in the other woman. There are plenty of approaches. I can also suggest counseling, though there’s one particular counselor I’d strike off my list in this case. Point is, it’s a lot more messy when you use amateur help. The lines can get muddy. If you’d like I’m in the book. You should keep Paul out of it, even if he volunteers.”

I had no hat, so I had nothing to tip. I winced a smile and moved on.

The receptionist was taking a personal call as I waited for the elevator. Either that or she was just too overcome with the giggles to help herself.

I was partway across City Hall Park when Sanchez called me. He said he could spare a few minutes, and we agreed to meet in the park. The wind had picked up, and the sky was definitely threatening to let loose. I veered off to a nearby Starbucks and got two overpriced cups. I returned to the park and eavesdropped on a pair of old men arguing about the election of ’48, the Truman upset over New York governor Dewey. The Dewey man was blaming the whole thing on Dewey’s mustache.

“I bet you can’t name the last president who won with facial hair,” the Dewey man challenged.

“Teddy Roosevelt!”

“Wrong. It was that other guy.”

“Who?”

“You know. I can’t remember the name. But you know. That other guy.”

“It was Roosevelt.”

“No. It wasn’t him. Jesus Christ. What the hell is his name?”

It was Taft. But I minded my own business.

Remy Sanchez showed up and we walked down to the south end of the park, away from City Hall.

“How was Mr. Carroll?” I asked.

“That man needs to take a vacation.”

“You’re not the first person to say so.”

“He wants me to pull every black and Hispanic undercover I’ve got and send them out to Brooklyn.”

“To the Ninety-fifth?”

“It’s like a convention of narcotics officers. He says this guy Ramos is a cop killer. I asked him what cop, and he said that’s not important. He said, ‘He’s a cop killer and I want your men to know it.’ It’s red meat. I asked him if he wanted dogs up there. I meant it as a joke, but he thought about it for a minute.”

I told him what I needed. Information about the alleged murder-suicide of Officers Pearson and Cash. Specifically, I wanted to know the watercooler talk about McNally and Cox and how they fit into the picture. I knew I hadn’t raised a tame topic. Sanchez’s eyes told me as much.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. I think I’m looking for motive for Leonard Cox to want to take out his partner. I’m wondering if there’s something in the whole Pearson-Cash thing that might be a key. Even in the papers, the story has a stink to it.”

“McNally went down in the parade,” Sanchez said. “Diaz shot him.”

“I know that. And Cox was conveniently on the ground already.”

“Meaning what?”

“Too many theories. Maybe it means nothing. But all the principals at the parade were from a precinct far, far away. The same one.” I set my coffee down on a bench. “And I’ll be blunt about it. Leonard Cox is as crooked as a corkscrew. My money says he shot Roberto Diaz in cold blood. You know that the ‘hero cop in Central Park’ story is a load of crap, don’t you?”